| Theory |
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Communists Against Religion -- Part 7 February 9, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
If you've read any of the other parts of this unending series (!), then I can't promise you anything really "new" here.
On the other hand, if you're new to this site, this collection of posts is a fairly succinct summary of my views on the subject.
Not that I'm all that succinct ever.
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quote:
...but I don't think having faith in something has to do with your political beliefs, has it? What do you think?
Well, there are two rather complicated assumptions buried in your question.
1. That politics involve "belief" rather than observation and reason.
2. That people can effectively "compartmentalize" their thoughts on various matters...and make them sealed compartments that never influence each other.
The first assumption is dubious and the second is clearly wrong.
Marxist politics at least attempt to be scientific...based on accurate observation of the material world, logical conclusions drawn from those observations, and political action that derives from those two activities. To change the world, you must understand it.
This is not to say that there have never been people who treated Marxism as a religion...a good deal of the Leninist tradition does exactly that.
But that's not what is supposed to happen.
On the other hand, capitalist/fascist politics do contain an important "religious" attitude...greed and power are "good" in and of themselves--no reference to the real world effects of those motivations is "required". They may be offered...but those who genuinely "believe" do not require them.
Another way to put it is that capitalism was born in "the age of faith" and still bears the marks of its birth. "Faith" is not necessarily considered "unreasonable" by capitalist thinkers.
This leads to a point I've made before in the hordes of threads we've had on this subject at Che-Lives...
When someone declares "faith" in the "supernatural"--in any way--they have declared the universe unknowable in a fundamental sense. If we "believe" in "supernatural" entities that can interact with the real world...then the real world becomes totally unpredictable by definition.
Which, in turn, leads to the conclusion that all purposeful human activity is completely pointless. Plant your fields, tend your crops as carefully as you may, and a "god" or even a "witch" may destroy the fruits of all your labors.
Of course, you can "worship" the "god" or burn the "witch"--and people have tried both of those ideas. They didn't work. The latter has fallen out of fashion lately--but people still try the former. It still doesn't work.
Every "holy book" has some variation on the ancient complaint: "the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer grievously".
That's because there's no such thing as "supernatural" entities that interact with the real world.
Now, consider the person who "believes" in the "supernatural" but tries to "change the real world". What are they going to do? Anything they "plan" can be upset by the random intervention of the "supernatural"--which also presumably has the power to change the world all by "itself" in any way it wishes.
Why not just "pray" for a new world? That has "just as good" a "chance" as any other method. And it's easier.
You can "do more" if you wish...but you're acting "in the dark"--by definition, you can't hope to have any idea of what the outcome of your work will be. It's "in the laps of the gods".
After more than a year on this board, I have seen dozens of people come here who are attracted to communism for its "moral content"...but who can't even imagine what it's like to "think like a communist".
This is what it's like: just forget all the nonsense you've ever heard about the "supernatural"...it doesn't exist, period.
Now, you ready to begin to understand the real world...and how to change it.
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 25, 2003
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quote:
OK, here's what I think. I think you're right. Yet, I still believe in some sort of G-d, BUT... I've never thought "it" rules the world and decides what is going to happen to the humanity, maybe "it" just watches and learns, I'm not sure really. I don't think "it" decides over our lives. Like I said before, the Holocaust, for example: Some jews think "it" did it to test us... but some -myself included- think "it" didn't do it and didn't stop it either. It just happened, because G-d doesn't rule humanity. Humanity is something, G-d is something else. I don't know if I explained myself.
Well, you seem to think that there "is" a "supernatural realm" but that it doesn't interact with the real material world at all.
If that were to be the case, then we can behave "as if" it doesn't exist...it has no influence on the outcome of real world activity. We need not "take it into account".
Thus, we can dismiss all of the "holy books" out of hand. Since the "supernatural" has no influence on the real world, the people who wrote them were either suffering from delusions or were liars. There's no reason to accept their pretensions of "knowing" about the inherently "unknowable" "supernatural realm".
Perhaps the "supernatural" "watches us"--like a "reality show" on dummyvision. Perhaps it is utterly indifferent to human life. Perhaps it is completely unaware that human life exists at all. In fact, the "supernatural realm" might not even be aware of our universe at all.
There's no way to tell.
Does it "make sense" to postulate such a "supernatural realm"...when there's no way to ever decide the question, one way or another? If it has no effect at all on the real world, why bother with a superfluous hypothesis? It's not "needed" to explain anything since it can't explain anything.
There's an interesting parallel here from biology. Throughout the 19th century and at least the first third of the 20th century, biologists assumed that "race" was a meaningful concept and tried to use it to "explain" all kinds of things. But the more they investigated, the more they found that "race" could not explain the problems they were trying to figure out.
As biologists learned more and more through the remainder of the 20th century, "race" became more and more unnecessary, more and more meaningless. Finally, the concept of "race" was simply abandoned as useless to biological science.
The people who study "race" now are sociologists and historians--"race" is a social construct and its meanings are to be found in culture, not biology.
As long as people seriously "believed" that the "supernatural realm" actively intervened in the real world--either by word, deed, or both--then it "made sense" to acquire "knowledge" about the "nature" of the "supernatural"...to consult "holy books" for guidance, to perform certain "rituals of worship", etc.
But as we have learned more and more about the real world, the "power" of the "supernatural explanation" has steadily receded. The 17th century "cosmology" of Isaac Newton suggested that "God created the universe and set it in motion"...and thereafter "went fishing".
Now, believers fall back on "the big bang"..."God started it" and that's the last event where they have any independent evidence for the possible "intervention of the supernatural".
But all is not well...there are some mathematical speculations about "natural causes of the big bang". The fate of the "supernatural" as an "explanation" for anything at all stands on the "edge of the abyss".
Meanwhile, the serious study of religion has passed to cultural historians and sociologists...it is, again, a social construct.
And, like "race", it is one that needs to be "deconstructed" very badly. It has done little good and much evil.
We should rid ourselves of it.
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 25, 2003
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quote:
If you don't believe in God, you don't believe in the Truth. And I certainly wouldn't trust someone who doesn't believe in the Truth. So, don't come with your revolution to my place, because I doubt many will trust you.
But we didn't come "to your place"--you came to "ours".
Having arrived safely, you have little recourse but to "tolerate" our "strange ways" until you learn why we think the way we do...or depart into the cold and bitter night of superstitious ignorance once more.
And here's a good place to begin. We don't ask you or require you to "trust us". If you hang around here long enough, you will learn to trust yourself.
Marxism is not some esoteric weird "Higher Truth" that only members of the inner circle of some cult can appreciate. It's actually a rather "common-sense" approach to understanding the real material world...that anyone of normal intelligence can understand with a little effort.
We don't believe in "God" and we don't believe in the "truth"...whatever you may mean by that.
We think the real world is all there is...and it is knowable, at least in principle. We strive to understand it, particularly with regard to human societies and how they change. Based on our understanding, we try to change it.
The reason we are so intolerant of religious belief is that it is a distraction from the task of understanding and changing the real world.
You must have noticed the rather obvious correlation. In general, the more important religious belief is to any given person, the more conservative and even reactionary the totality of their outlook.
To the degree that we are able to both refute superstitious ideas and remove them from public life, we have cleared away an enormous obstacle to real human understanding of the world and how it works.
quote:
You're not more right than those who believe, so don't try to impose your ideals on them when you have absolutely no base whatsoever to prove that God doesn't exist.
On the contrary, lack of evidence for the "existence" of "God" is effective proof of "God's" nonexistence...just as the lack of evidence for unicorns is effective proof that unicorns don't exist.
If you nevertheless insist that unicorns "do exist", then I will certainly attempt to "impose my idea" on you that they do not.
But I won't try very hard...because a belief in unicorns is a "harmless folly".
Suppose you tried to turn your belief in unicorns into a religion...with holy books, a rigid moral code, a priesthood, an injunction from the "Great Unicorn" that non-believers must either be converted or slaughtered, etc.?
Then things get a little different...and I am so "intolerant" of that crap that I just might suggest that you be taken out and summarily shot!
Why? Because we know where that sort of crap goes, and what it leads to.
The price of "salvation" is more than we intend to pay.
A lot more!
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First posted at Che-Lives on January 19, 2004
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quote:
You will try to change it because you've got hopes for that, because you care about society as a whole.
Knowingly or otherwise, you raise a crucial question and one that has tormented the left since World War I if not before.
Is revolution to be seen as "a global act of mega-charity" or as an act of "individual self-interest"?
Should we be involved in revolutionary political activity because we "want to help others" or because we want to liberate ourselves from wage-slavery?
Although these alternatives are rarely spoken aloud (it's "delicate"...), they lead in very different directions.
The person who wants to "help others" is saying to himself "I'm doing ok; capitalism isn't so bad for me. But I feel guilty because that system makes others suffer so much."
Since revolution is, after all, difficult and, under the best of circumstances, takes a long time, people with the "charity view" tend to drift away from revolutionary politics in favor of strategies that promise "immediate relief from suffering". They may still talk about revolution, but their hearts and energies are spent in the political equivalent of changing bed-pans...like "Mother Teresa".
They relieve their guilt by relieving this small amount of present suffering...and ignore all the suffering that they can't directly relieve, or all the suffering that the system will bring in the future.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
The class-conscious worker--in the Marxist sense--is not unaware of human suffering (her own or that of others), but is not blinded by it. To her, liberation from class society is the primary goal; she wants to be free.
Is she being "selfish"?
Perhaps. But remember, if she is successful, than she will eliminate more pain and suffering in a single blow than all the "Mother Teresas" that ever lived or ever will live.
Which kind of "lefty" are you?
quote:
Sorry, can't get your point here.
Religious people are predominately conservative on all social questions and the more religious they are, the more reactionary all of their views tend to be.
It's not an "iron law" of history, but it's a pretty accurate approximation. The exceptions are very rare and, for that matter, usually not very exceptional at that.
quote:
Lack of evidence in a murder doesn't make the murderer any less guilty than what he/she is. Regardless of what the Judge or Jury says, the murder was committed by the murderer. Of course nobody will be able to prove it, but still, it does not change the truth.
The "truth" is irrelevant. Once the accused has been found "not guilty", the law has no choice but to treat him as innocent and set him free.
Since there is no evidence for the existence of the supernatural, we have no choice (if we are rational) but to treat the natural world as "all there is".
If there is some "supernatural realm" that is completely hidden from us and never interacts with the natural world in such a way as to "leave evidence" of the existence of a "supernatural realm"...then the simplest conclusion is that it doesn't exist
quote:
We might safely say: in earth there are no unicorns. But until we travel and get knowledge of the entire universe, a unicorn may or may not exist. And trying to deny that only makes a fool out of you simply because lack of evidence doesn't mean lack of existence.
There's actually a better example for your argument. In 1890, had someone said that the earth is permeated with energetic radiation as a consequence of atomic decay...the claim would have been dismissed as utter superstition. There was no evidence of such a phenomenon. Indeed, the existence of atoms was still a matter of heated controversy...matter behaved "as if" it were atomic, but there was no "direct evidence" yet (no one realized what "Brownian motion" really implied).
Five years or so later, the first odd pieces of evidence started to accumulate and modern atomic physics began.
It's not completely out of the question that somewhere in the universe is a life-bearing planet with a life-form that bears a striking resemblance to the medieval picture of a "unicorn"...though there is zero chance that it will be especially attracted by human female virgins.
But that will be coincidence; it is wildly unlikely that it will be a mammal...or that mammals will exist anywhere but here, where they evolved (not counting us or any mammals we take with us to the stars).
It is, as a matter of scientific principle, always possible that real evidence of a "supernatural realm" and even of "gods" could someday be discovered.
But if that happened, the consequences would be appalling.
Everything that we "thought that we knew" about the real universe would be instantly overthrown.
We would "become as little children" again, as we were 150,000 years ago, totally ignorant of everything.
To the infantile mind, this might be a very appealing prospect...to me, it's about the most horrible outcome I can imagine.
It would be a fate literally "worse than death".
quote:
If religion isn't used for a GOOD PURPOSE, then it's full of crap.
When has that ever happened?
Ok, to be fair, there are a few occasions. Protestant Christianity played a major role in the 19th century abolitionist movement and was significant in the 20th century civil rights movement.
It's been argued on this board from time to time that Catholic "liberation theology" has been a "progressive" influence in some Latin American countries. I remain highly skeptical of this...but it deserves a mention.
Anything else? Ever?
Religion has been around for at least 6,000 years that we know of (all of recorded history) and probably a lot longer than that.
The "track record" is horrendous...and contemporary religions, by and large, have continued to accumulate atrocities and barbarities. Both Bush and Bin Laden are "devout"...with catastrophic consequences for the human species.
quote:
I think that around here we're all nice guys and girls .. we should just try to get along and let others believe whatever they want to believe AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T AFFECT THE REVOLUTION.
I'm not "nice"...and I assert that superstitious beliefs do in fact "affect the revolution" in negative ways.
We need to get rid of them.
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First posted at Che-Lives on January 20, 2004
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In my opinion, the crucial objective is to altogether remove religion from public life.
What nonsense people want to believe privately is up to them; but under no circumstances should it be permitted to have "a public presence" in post-capitalist society.
In particular, I think all religious architecture should be demolished. If people want to meet in a group to "worship god", let them use their basements.
All public religious ceremonies should be abolished...as well as religious holidays--"holy days".
Place names with religious connotations should be changed--farewell San Francisco, hello Yerba Buena!
A new calendar should be established...counting our years from the birth of a country preacher (and counting them incorrectly at that) is inexcusable.
The mass production and sale of religious paraphernalia should cease...though if someone wished to privately make such things, I see no problem with that. (You want to chow down on "the body of Christ"--bake it yourself!)
No more "holy books" should be printed...except for scholarly editions like The Anchor Bible (only more critical). Existing "holy books" can just be allowed to "wear out".
Taking money from people to perform religious rituals should be a criminal offense (fraud).
Street-preaching--disturbing the peace--should be a misdemeanor.
Indoctrinating children (under the age of 12) with religious views should be considered Class A Felony Child Abuse.
Since I've advocated these steps in many threads on other boards, I can easily anticipate some of the responses.
For example, "you can't possibly do this all at once".
Agreed, I think the struggle against superstition will be lengthy and occasionally tumultuous. And it will take time to demolish all those buildings.
But I think we have to be clear (a lot clearer than many) that religion is a major source of reactionary ideas in post-capitalist society. Indeed, since the capitalists have been presumably deprived of the opportunity to directly influence the working class, religion may be the major source of counter-revolutionary ideas and the motivation for spreading those ideas.
We can't "fool around" about this...or it will come back to bite us in the ass.
In Poland and East Germany, the bite was fatal.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on January 30, 2004
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quote:
The thing is, not every single person will ever be happy with the system. You'll always have protests against anything and everything. but there's nothing wrong with that. Where would we be without protests?
Actually, I didn't say anything about protests, for or against.
I think of that as a different topic for a different thread.
But since you asked, it's pretty obvious that there are different kinds of protests with different kinds of motivations.
Some would be acceptable--or at least grudgingly tolerated--by post-capitalist society...and others would not.
Demonstrations and protests from the left urging more working class democracy or faster progress towards communism or stronger measures against racism or patriarchy ought to be not only permitted but encouraged.
Demonstrations and protests from the right--the Neo-Nazi Party, the League to Restore Capitalism, the Male Supremacy League, etc.--will be almost certainly suppressed, formally or informally.
Where do religious demonstrations and protests fit in here? Clearly, on the right.
quote:
I mean, yes. Religion is a huge problem and it's what we're fighting...but we can't just strip it away from everyone, including their right to free speech. That's just prepostrious...
Read more carefully...nothing is said about stripping away people's beliefs. People can believe anything they wish--when you stop and think about it, there's no way to "stop" people from believing whatever they wish. I'd love to be able to press a "universal delete key" and permanently erase all superstitious beliefs from every mind on the face of the Earth.
Sadly, that can't be done. Thus I offer a more limited option: to wipe superstition out of public life.
That's something that can actually be done...with a lot of hard work.
I think a word about "free speech" is in order here: that everyone who says they "believe in free speech" doesn't really mean it.
Everyone has a list of "forbidden viewpoints" which they would suppress (with violence) if they had the chance to do so.
Not even the smug and self-righteous at the American Civil Liberties Union believe in free speech for "everyone"...you won't find them in court defending people who've been charged with possession of child pornography, for example.
When people say they believe in "free speech", they really mean speech that they agree with and speech that they don't care about one way or the other.
When it comes to something that people think is really important, they are quite prepared to discard "free speech" if they think that will help them to win.
The internet with its tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of message boards and forums is without a doubt the greatest arena of free speech in human history.
But don't kid yourself; say the "wrong thing" at any message board...and you will be banned.
Not to mention that certain boards are banned in every country and authorities actually shut down boards (if they can) that they don't like.
I think as communists we should face reality and tell the truth: there's no such thing as "absolute" freedom of speech...nor will there ever be such a thing.
Perhaps that's unfortunate...but it's a fact.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on January 31, 2004
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quote:
It struck me that they [Marx & Engels] express a very strong insistence about the folly of attempting to outright suppress religion. There is no better way, they insist, to give life to religion than to drive it underground and to make it illegal or something "subterranean." It is far better to let it out in the open. -- Bob Avakian
This is a good example of how to treat Marx and Engels as "scripture". It ignores the actual experiences of 20th century socialist countries...as if they never happened.
If Marx and Engels had had the opportunity to actually observe the counter-revolutionary activities of the Catholic Church in Poland and the Protestant Church in East Germany (GDR), what do you think they would have concluded about the role of religion in post-revolutionary societies?
What do you think the Catholic Church is telling its followers in Cuba today?
As to the "folly" of driving religion "underground", there are many historical examples on both sides of the question.
Did the Temple of Isis have a big turnout in your neighborhood today? How about Marduk...are His congregations growing where you live?
No? You don't have any worshipers of Isis or Marduk where you live? Me neither!
Those religions and almost all of the religions that have ever existed were suppressed...that is, removed from public life. They subsequently withered and died.
The violent suppression of Christianity in Japan worked...Christianity was never able to recover and while the Japanese celebrate Christmas today as a commercial holiday, the number of Japanese Christians remains trivial.
quote:
...the religious sentiments of masses of people are not something that should be outlawed "by decree," that people cannot move beyond religious superstition and prejudice by being ordered to do so. People can't move beyond that by having atheism imposed on them. -- Bob Avakian
This is true but misleading. You cannot "order" someone to be an atheist, even at gunpoint. He will lie and secretly still believe. It's an exercise in futility.
What can be done is to remove the "public role" of religion. If there are no religious buildings, books, paraphernalia, place names, etc.--nothing to signify that religion is a "normal" part of public life--then religion is forced back on its own private resources (such as they are).
The social reasons for professing belief are gone...and, as we know, the people who are susceptible to serious belief in the absence of social support are few in number.
There will be some and, as long as they don't make a public nuisance of themselves, I'm all for leaving them to their follies.
A draconian persecution of believers would indeed be counter-productive; putting people in jail simply for believing would just create martyrs.
It's better for the new society to be "matter-of-fact" atheist, coolly and methodically removing the public symbols of religion on a deliberate basis.
And it doesn't have to be done "all at once". The important thing is to begin doing it at once and keep at it.
Finish the job!
quote:
...you cannot suppress a huge group of people. because, like defiants, they will rise up, sooner or later. and take back what you stole.
By the time proletarian revolution is a realistic possibility, it may not be such "a huge number". The numbers of people who are really serious about religion are declining and have been for a couple of centuries.
The material conditions of capitalism "eat away" at the ideological foundations of religion--which is quite ironic, since capitalist ideologues are extremely appreciative of religion as a "social glue" that helps to contain class struggle.
But in the crunch, "Mammon" always beats "God".
In western Europe, the most likely site of proletarian revolution in the 21st century, church attendance has fallen enormously in the last 50 years. This is having symbolic repercussions: France's Chirac has proposed the banning of ostentatious religious clothing and symbols in French public schools. The large crucifixes in Italian public schools--relics of Mussolini's fascist regime--are finally being removed.
Even the pope is whining about the fact that there is no mention of (much less tribute to) Christianity in the new draft constitution of the European Union.
In a continent of 400,000,000 people, a few million die-hard believers will be a problem but perhaps not a serious public problem.
We'll see.
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The proletariat should be able to monitor the activities of all religious activities and organizations to make sure they are not doing anything that would lead to such activities, or to prevent such things from becoming capital.
They did that in Poland, the GDR, etc. It didn't work! (Even under Stalin, it didn't work!)
Cuba is doing it right now--they have a "Ministry of Religion" that is supposed to keep track of what the believers are up to.
Would you really want to bet a black-market peso that their "oversight" is doing anything to reduce the counter-revolutionary sentiments that are being quietly communicated by the clergy to believers?
One of the Cuban bishops actually publicly referred to the Batista regime as "the golden age of Catholicism in Cuba".
He was, I think, telling the truth!
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Communists are atheists, but we must wage an ideological struggle over this question and rely on those among the masses who hold such beliefs to cast them off on their own...
It's hard to find anyone with any revolutionary aspirations who's "against" ideological struggle.
But I've noticed a marked reluctance to engage in ideological struggle over superstition prior to the revolution. I have the impression that many think that first we'll overthrow the capitalist class and then we will begin an ideological struggle against religion (and patriarchy and racism and...whatever).
That's not going to work. Real communists have to engage in ideological struggle against all of the oppressive aspects of class society now.
This will certainly reduce the short-term appeal of our ideas...we will inevitably alienate some people who might have been "pro-communist" had we not trampled on their own favorite form of dominance/submission.
In the long run, when communist ideas begin to spread more widely among the masses, it will be the whole package that spreads. People will understand--even if they don't agree at first--that communism means dismantling the totality of class society.
And it's hard to over-estimate the importance of that in the whole revolutionary process. The more the masses understand the need to dismantle class society completely, the easier the revolutionary process will go and the less matters will depend on the chance emergence of revolutionary leaders.
Most people will not only know that religion is "going to go" but will be "just fine with that".
The dumpster of history is commodious.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 1, 2004
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Redstar, if you think that some black clad, pistol carrying fuck bearing your communist party emblem on his right arm is going to punish me in any way for standing on a street corner yelling whatever the fuck I want, then I certainly want nothing to do with any political group you may be involved in.
If you think I'm going to put up with being irritated by some loud-mouthed, obnoxious, reactionary asshole yelling some superstitious bullshit in my ears while I'm waiting for the bus, "then I certainly want nothing to do with any political group you may be involved in".
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...I want to take a gun and ram it down you anti-freedom types throats and make it clear that I can't stand someone denying me personal or collective egalitarianism and freedom...
Preach a gospel; go to jail!
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For the "communist", the commune is a spiritual experience. It is something powerful, that is beyond a logical and scientific rationale.
That is just meaningless babble...unless you are speaking of "religious communists" like the Hutterian Brethren.
And I don't think I've even heard them speak of their communes as "a spiritual experience." Their view is that Christians simply ought to live in the way that the Jerusalem Church is described in the "Acts of the Apostles".
quote:
Also a note of interest, Jesus Christ, who in his day was very much a revolutionary...
Not really. He was a "country preacher"--a kind of a Jewish "revivalist" who tried to reaffirm a "simple rural faith" in the face of the increasingly sophisticated Judaism of the Temple hierarchy in Jerusalem--heavily influenced by Greek philosophy as it was.
The best summary of his message is probably "Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand."
To suggest that he was any kind of political or economic "revolutionary" is false to the guy's own ideas. His "Kingdom" was not "of this world".
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My point being is that spiritual people as well as religious people can be revolutionaries.
They may become "revolutionaries"--though the odds are heavily against it--but they cannot become communist revolutionaries.
In fact, almost always, they are reactionaries.
What else would you expect?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 4, 2004
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quote:
Cutting off my quote makes it seem like that is what I said. When in reality I characterized my rant that way. Thanks.
On the internet, you "rant" at your peril...no one knows whether to take what you say seriously or not.
Some people, to protect themselves from being misunderstood, actually use brackets: [rant]blah, blah, blah[/rant].
As it happens, I'm one of those "straight to communism" heretics who is against the establishment of any centralized state apparatus after the revolution...so your feelings about repressive "laws" are not that different from my own.
Nevertheless, I anticipate a sharp struggle against reactionary currents of opinion after the revolution, formal and informal.
I am not "tolerant" of just "any old idea".
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The rich man passing through the eye of a needle like getting into heaven blah blah blah I'm too tired to quote it directly but it's fairly apparent that following the word means economic egalitarianism which [is] what the main tenet of communism is.
Well no, again not really. There's no doubt that "Jesus" expressed a certain hostility towards the wealthy...perhaps because they were identified in the popular mind with the sophisticated versions of Judaism that he preached against. But he was not unwilling to be a dinner-guest of the rich...and he evidently had at least one wealthy follower who donated a tomb for him.
If "Jesus" were really a kind of "primitive communist", then it's curious that not once does he explicitly urge that on his disciples.
He could have easily said "Share with one another as I have shared with you" or words to that effect--the "feast" of the "loaves and fishes" would have been a perfect opportunity.
He didn't do it because the idea never occurred to him. Communism is a fairly sophisticated idea...it's unlikely to have fallen out of the sky and into the head of an itinerant country preacher.
It's not as if he had read Plato and decided on a "Jewish" version of Sparta.
quote:
Maybe it is the fear of a church leader having pull over revolutionaries that is scaring everyone so much. Wouldn't want two opinions to be floating around in people's heads, only the party leader's doctrine and nothing else of course.
If you've read some of my other posts, you already know my opinions of "party leaders".
But in a way, you're right. The influence of a prominent and charismatic religious leader can be catastrophic...history has a horde of examples.
Still, it is superstition itself that is the real enemy...not the people who may hold those views at any particular point in time.
Perhaps a good current metaphor would be: superstition is like the "back door" that some viruses establish on your computer if they infect it.
The virus writer may never attempt to access your system through the "back door" and "take over your computer for his own purposes"...but you remain vulnerable.
Another name for believers is: those who can be used. It may never happen...but it can happen.
And I simply propose not to let it happen.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 4, 2004
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